Earn Your Turns – Utah Day 3

Day 3 of our jaunt to Utah saw the YPWGP crew one YP down. Sadly, we had to part ways with our most daring member, Boomer, due to business matters in the city of sin. Undeterred by his absence, the rest of the crew battled on and were off to Brighton for bigger lines and deeper pow.

Are you beeping?

We found ourselves in a familiar spot to 2010 – at the base of Pioneer Ridge ready to take on a moderate slog in the hopes of deep sidecountry blower. Though it had not snowed overnight, we had recounted from hotel hot tub dwellers (mainly a very friendly and informative Czech) that tourists tend to attack Snowbird, Alta, and SLC resorts, leaving us in a good position to get the goods out of Big Cottonwood Canyon.

We made several laps through the chutes and glades off of Pioneer Ridge, finding hidden white rooms and untouched canvasses all over. To our very pleasant surprise, there were several pre-built kickers from powder days past waiting for us at the bottom of our runs. We were sure to take advantage.

Following these runs, we made our trek to far skier’s right of the resort to take advantage of some untouched lines flowing from Clayton Peak. Here we found some of the deepest turns of the trip and, again, some very friendly locals who were glad to assist us in picking optimal lines. The turns were deep and the smiles wide. Although our legs were burning from the 1500′ vertical of slogging throughout the day, it was well worth the big lines and deep fluff that we discovered.